Republican Party "Pioneer" Reunion

Gov. and Mrs. Mark Sanford and the Republican Party hosted a reunion at the Governor’s Mansion on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008 for over three hundred Republican “pioneers,” folks active in the Party prior to 1974. SCPC was invited to mount an exhibit and the pioneers were requested to bring memorabilia to add to SCPC’s Heritage Hunt collection.

The exhibit was well received. Six portable cases featured materials from our collections of the papers of Charlie Boineau, Jim Edwards, Edgar and Ann Morris, Ken Powell, the Republican Party, Greg Shorey, Floyd Spence, and Bill Workman, and vertical files on Marshall Parker and Albert Watson. One case was devoted to the 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, a landmark event in the rise of the Republican Party in South Carolina.

We appreciate the kindnesses shown us by Rusty DePass, Gov. & Mrs. Edwards, Gov. & Mrs. Sanford, and Gay Suber in assuring that we were represented in this fine event and to thirteen pioneers who brought and donated memorabilia.